Arts & Performances

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ARTS & PERFORMANCES

HAMLET: The Method in the Madness

In honor of GDS’s 75th anniversary, the GDS

High School theater program presented a 75-minute virtual version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Every audience member had a box seat with the best view in the house on opening night in January. Despite the isolation of that Zoom rectangle, the show was a sumptuous experience that relied upon weeks of behind-the-scenes audio and visual tinkering. Student teams designed and delivered costumes and props to the actors’ homes. The sets crew created tessellated virtual backgrounds to create the illusion that all of the actors were haunting the same location. Actors prerecorded their performances, and the sound team added background audio and music for the live screening. From out of the madness of staging a virtual play, students’ methods and efforts delivered a virtual masterpiece. Learn more about the show at www.GDS.org/Hamlet.

King Claudius (Elias Rodriguez ’22, top center) wagers on the duel as (counterclockwise from top left) the queen’s lady (Leila Jackson ’22), Queen Gertrude (Jacqueline Metgzer-Taylor ’23), Horatio (Noah Freedman ’22), Laertes (Aidan Kohn- Murphy ’22), and Osric (Stella Tongour ’22) look on.

In a triumph of the visual effects team, (top row, left to right) Queen Gertrude, King Claudius, and Horatio join (center row, left to right) the queen’s lady, the priest (Elliot Oppenheim ’21), Hamlet (Caleigh Vergeer ’21), and (bottom row) Laertes in the graveyard.

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”

– SHAKESPEARE

BOOK AS SCULPTURE

What do you most value in a book?

What is essential to your experience of a book?

Now—imagine reinventing books…

High School art teacher Nick Ryan’s students explored and reimagined books, asking themselves questions to define and center value in their creative process.

How radically would you reimagine a book as sculpture?

Katherine Davies ’24

How will a viewer interact with it?

Sophie Bronner ’23 Christian Charles ’24

Where will your book take the viewer?

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Helena Dobbs ’23 Stella Tongour ’22 Cole Huh ’24

Holding onto Peace at Christmas

As in years past, kindergarten teachers read the Christmas story aloud, High School Morris dancers skipped and smashed sticks together jubilantly, and Russell Shaw sang his GDS “Christmas Blues.”

But in 2020, Lower School arts teachers blended multiple disciplines into single virtual performances. PKK students danced to “Silent Night” with colorful scarves in our new performing arts theater while their classmates danced at home, and student artwork celebrating peace and the winter season framed the virtual stage. Fourth graders sang and played recorder on “Let Me Be a Light for Peace” over a gallery of favorite 1st- through 3rd-grade fall artwork.

MS Music on Campus

Along with the return of migratory birds

and fully vaccinated teachers, we also saw the return of Middle School music to campus in spring 2021. With outdoor distancing and instrument-specific filters, band and choral groups began to rehearse together again.

Middle School honored what our first head of school Aggie O’Neil called “each others’ days of joy” through earnest recollections of favorite winter holiday traditions, reflections on peace, good wishes for each other, and a radio play of “Twas the Night Before Christmas.”

The High School shared traditional carols and readings, a comically sanitized ribbon-wrapped Morris dance, a jazz interlude, a “Rosberg Reading” (HS performing arts chair Laura Rosberg read Susan Cooper’s “The Shortest Day”), and Russell’s quintessential blues. The 2020 rendition will likely be best remembered for surprising the HS community with news of two teachers who added a bit more love into a difficult year with their under-the-radar marriage back in March.

Outdoor chorus with LMS music teacher and arts chair Keith Hudspeth

In one of his final blog posts for the Hopper Effect before retirement, Kevin Barr chose, in January of 2019, to write about GDS traditions like the Christmas Peace Assembly. He concluded, “In a world which can seem chaotic, we can crave something sturdy to hold onto. GDS and its celebrations are a pretty sure bet.”

While Kevin could not have imagined the changed world we are living through now, he understood then that hard times are ever present, but that moments of joy, love, gratitude—and peace—can help us thrive through them.

Alicia Kim ’27

Morris dancers on the High School field, accompanied by Topher Dunne on fiddle

Jameson Shelton ’27 Evan Donath ’27

Barbara’s PK class performs to “Silent Night.”

Violet Ikenberry ’26 sings during the (virtual) Middle School Peace Assembly.

GEORGETOWN DAYS 2020–21 SCHOOL YEAR

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IDENTITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

ART SHOW

The virtual exhibition went live on March 1 and had thousands of visitors. The paintings and drawings, photography, sculptures, and digital art showed students processing their identities as well as their perspectives on the social injustices, hostile political climate, and systemic racism that they are witnessing—or experiencing—firsthand, living in Washington, DC. Below, we spotlight six representative pieces.

COVID TEENAGER

Addie Lowenstein ’22

Addie’s mixed-media piece features an anxious self-portrait, a coronavirus-spangled banner, and newspaper headlines telling the story of the evolving response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She also included everyday objects—Zoom boxes, airpods, Q-tips for COVID testing, masks, and a glove—all items that “have gained a special significance in this period,” Addie said. “For the identity show I was thinking a lot about the way that COVID has influenced my identity as both an American and a teenager...we all had to find new ways to connect with each other, and continue to do the things we love, and be ourselves, all during an insanely stressful period.”

ASIA—BEHIND THE MASK

Maya Ryu ’23

Since the beginning of the pandemic, Maya has become more aware of the Asian-American part of her identity “as I watched my community getting attacked and harassed,” she explained. Her piece displays the “anger and disgust that flared up every time our president called the novel disease the ‘Chinese Virus’” and as the incidence of hate crimes against Asians skyrocketed, including “getting spit on, being called racial slurs, or even being physically attacked.” Maya has represented the “countless cultures and people” of the Asian community through this mixed-media collage.

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REPRESENT

Nathaniel Romine ’24

Nathaniel captured several important elements of his identity, his race, and his hometown— “Chocolate City”—in this mixed-media piece. His face, stylistically inspired by contemporary artist Benny Bing and featuring the colors of the Pan-African flag, represents aspects of his racial identity and sits on his home ward on the DC map beneath. “I remember hearing old songs my dad used to play that referenced ‘Chocolate City,’” Nathaniel said. “I asked him what that meant, and he told me about how DC used to be a majority Black city and how it got to be that way.” As his title suggests, Nathaniel represents a part of that DC story.

UNTITLED

Gavin Seiden ’21

Gavin’s S-shaped dollar sign puts a spotlight on the troubling influence of money in the college application process, specifically with respect to tests like the SAT. Preparation courses routinely raise test scores, but the costs of the classes also remain “an economic barrier to many,” he said. The test is “a symbol of the socio-economic issues present within the system.” Even as he and his peers navigated the process under very new circumstances, Gavin wanted to shine a light on the systemic inequities beyond the bribery scandals. The 15 geometric solids featured in this construction are made from standardized test scantrons.

THE SCARS OF AMERICA

Harold Oppenheim ’22

In this digital collage, Harold superimposed imagery from the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021 (credit Andrew Harnik/AP) onto the Washington Monument to represent “the bigotry that runs deep in America,” which seems “inseparable from the American identity as a whole.” The strength of iconic American buildings, he went on to explain, masks rampant injustices in the country. The piece represents the conflict, hatred, greed, and “everpresent wounds” in America.

I SPEAK FOR MYSELF

Katie Young ’23

Katie made this advocacy piece in support of people with disabilities, who are often “presumed to be incapable of speaking to their own needs or wants” to the point that people will turn to somebody else to speak for them. “Whether in a medical setting or even ordering food at a restaurant, too many people are treated as invisible due to differing abilities,” said Katie, who has witnessed this as a family member and friend to people with both intellectual and physical disabilities. “It’s important to recognize that all people have the right to speak for themselves.”

The High School arts team—Michelle Cobb, Adrian Loving, Tuan Nguyen, Nick Ryan, and Laura Tolliver—made this show possible through their ongoing work in support of the students and their art.

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